Photography & Photoshop Friday

I'm showing you 100% straight out of the camera here....oh please don't run and hide.


Okay, this image was shot in Katie's bedroom with her in her crib (she had just woken up, and this is actually NOT a pout, but a "sniffing" of her nose which was slightly runny). Her bedroom window by the crib has sunlight streaming in it, but it's not hitting her directly. Notice the reflection in her eyes.

WHY is it pink? Well, the lights were off in her room and she has pink curtains hanging up that a lot of the sunlight was filtering through. I could have custom white balanced this and shot in jpg mode. It takes a few seconds to do, but as I shoot in raw I chose to not do that. If you open it up in a new window (right click on it), you will see that it's fairly in focus in the eyes but the crib behind her is out of focus (and really her ears are out of focus as well). It was shot slightly underexposed, but not too bad off (again in RAW format I can correct that).

So, I open in Adobe Camera RAW (Lightroom does similar, but I'm more familiar with ACR).


I adjust the color balance (the top two sliders on the right). I do this by playing with them until I get something that looks correct and "real life" to me. Then I adjust the exposure using the sliders below those top 2 - yes ALL those sliders fine tune the exposure for me. RIGHT CLICK and open in a new window/tab for closer viewing. :)

Isn't that MUCH better than "pink" pouty face girl?

closer photo of the ending sliders.


When I'm happy with those adjustments I open the image into Photoshop...

I look at the image at 100% - to see how much "noise" I am dealing with.


This one had more than I like, so I ran a filter I purchased - Noiseware.


Then I run a few actions I have bought or created or gathered. One is called "defog" and it's easy to create yourself. Open up the Unsharp Mask Filter, the settings are Amount 20%, Radius 60 pixels, Threshold 0. I use it on EVERY SINGLE PHOTO, thus I created an action that runs that setting. It basically removes the "fog" that is an artifact of every digital image, slightly sharpens the image. This image I also ran a 2nd action that gives layers for eye enhancement - on this one I sharpened and brightened her eyes bringing out the reflection of the window light.


Next I add a CURVES layer and a LEVELS layer - the Curves layer I play with the curve to get a slight S type curve (this one was backwards S. Levels layer I just play with it. Pay close attention so that you do not blow out the highlights and do not lose the details in the shadows. I give almost every single image both of these layers as well - with varying degrees of "opacity" applied.


I then go in and burn and dodge different areas to get the final effect I want...again it's a "playing" kind of thing. Both my burn and dodge tools are set to no more than 21% exposure on the midtones - thus I'm making TINY corrections. The key to great photoshop is tiny corrections that build on each other with very very "feathered" brushes.


My final editing step is to get to 200% magnification and fix all those little "blemishes" I see...such as nose issues, sleepy things in the face, or snot smears on the face.


Final product - with square crop because I felt it just called for it.